We need to give up what no longer works
and find new ways of being
that keep us close to what matters
Mark Nepo
Tag: balance
A new month: Unexpected gifts
As life becomes harder … it also becomes richer,
because the fewer expectations we have,
the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.
Etty Hillesum, born 1914, died in Auschwitz 1943.
Inner voyages
The human heart is never still. … There are always new thoughts and experiences emerging in your life; some moments delight and surprise you, others bring you onto shaky ground. …The mind and heart are wanderers who are always tempted by new horizons. … Your longing frequently takes you on inner voyages that no one would ever guess. …longing keeps the door open and calls towards us the gifts and blessings which our lives dream.
John O’Donohue,
Full life
Listen, are you breathing just a little,
and calling it a life?
Mary Oliver, Have you ever tried to enter the Long Black Branches
The question before me, now that I
am old, is not how to be dead,
which I know from enough practice,
but how to be alive, as these worn
hills still tell, and some paintings
of Paul Cézanne, and this mere
singing wren, who thinks he’s alive
forever, this instant, and may be.
Wendell Berry, Sabbaths, 2001, VIII
Stubborn refusal
The path of love is not the absence of fear. Real love is made possible through vulnerability. Vulnerability is the possibility of having one’s heart open enough to let love in, and also let pain in. The path of love is not the avoiding of suffering, but the welcoming of joy and suffering alike, the way a gracious host would.
So no, the path of love is not being impervious to fear.
It is simply the stubborn refusal to let fear have the last word.
Omid Safi, We must Cling to Love
photo Eric kilby
The address of happiness
The only moment in which you can be truly alive is the present moment. The present moment is the destination, the point to arrive at. Every time you breathe in and take a step, you arrive: “Breathing in I arrive, breathing out I arrive”. This is the address of happiness, the address of life. The Buddha said “Life is accessible only in the present moment”. Life with all its wonders is accessible now. So we train in coming back to the present moment.
Thich Nhat Hanh, You are Here
photo kevin higgins
